October 2009 Blog Posts (43)

It's Halloween and it's garden clean up day. I love Saturdays. This is the one day that I save for taking care of my home and garden. I don't actually "work" on Saturdays. We have a light drizzle here in Enumclaw today and its warm. It's nice and I'm just in from cleaning up my garden. Tomato plants and Shasta Daisies are out and composting. Sunflowers are cut for the chickens and I'm making a dent in that pile of junk that I pulled out of the shed when we made the stall for Abby.

I from Southern Illinois. I found 255 acres of good pasture ground with a little bit of woods. The ground has an old house, an old large barn, and a silo on it. The price per acre is cheap for the area, but the overall price is around $700,000. I think I have a pretty good plan as to making money on this property with beef cattle and other options such as renting the house for hunters, fishermen, and horse riders. The problem is that it will take a couple of years to get it all going, so I do… Continue

Clayton Carley and The Sweet Corn Shack, 2009 FFA Agri-Entrepreneur, branched out to catering and using T-shirts to spread the word. Clayton presented his idea at the 82nd National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, Oct 21-24,…Continue

Are you a single FARMER??
Life is tough for men on the land – they face not only the drought, but terrible isolation. It’s almost impossible for farmers to meet the woman of their dreams.

We are offering one of America's most eligible farmers a solution to their ‘lonely heart’ problem and the chance to be a part of an Australian reality series. This might your opportunity to meet your Aussie soul- mate.

The show we are planning to produce is a feel-good story of love… Continue

Corn is out, finally. A lot of beans in the area have been cut, sadly none by us. It's been a good bean year though, heard a lot of 70's and 80's along with a few 90's. Cut our bean plot last Thursday, Asgrow did well, Pioneer was mediocre at best, and NK showed up well. I was very reserved on whether or not the RRY2 beans would do what they were supposed to, but was pleasantly surprised by the yield gain. Wheat planting has been a true struggle so far. Trying to meet production acres for… Continue

I just put together a "slideshow" on Agriculture.com of a selection of harvest photos from our social network here. I borrowed the "let's roll" theme from Shane Newbrough's combine add-on. Seems appropriate this year, given all the challenges a lot of you have faced.

I hope this coverage helps our Web site visitors, and the general public, better understand what's happening out on the land this… Continue

well my step-dad and i would of already had the crops almost out already but it just rained this past week so we are waiting on it to dry for a couple of days but after that it wont take no time to get the crops out.

The following editorial was found in the 10-9-09 edition of the Washington Post. Kathrine Ozer Executive Director of the National Farm Family Coalition, wrote a response to this editorial that follows.

Got Money?

Washington Post Editorial

AT $2.87 a gallon, the average price of milk is down 27 percent from a year ago. That means cheaper groceries for… Continue

Here is a little bit about one of the brands we know and love here at G&L Clothing.

Farm Boy brand was founded in 1996 by two former farm boys from the Midwest who set out to capture the pride and nostalgia of the farming lifestyle. While the designs are farm oriented, the shirt, hat, and sweatshirt styles appeal to everyone on the farm and beyond.

Take this chance to fall in love with the Farm Boy and Farm Girl brands by browsing our selection… Continue

Well, it was my first year to grow tomatillos. I had three plants develop out of the 60 I was hoping for. Prolonged rains this Spring didn't help and as I've mentioned before, the dirt at my new home needed amending (so I learned.) My Tomatillo plants produced 5 cups of chopped fruit, some of the darn things no bigger than a quarter. They were really good though. Last night I made these jars of salsa and a pot of fresh tomato soup from my tiny (but delicious) tomato crop (same… Continue

I have heard that there is a Begining Farmer Loan that a young new farmer can apply for through the USDA to help with buying a farm, equipment, livestock, etc. Has anybody used this before? I am looking at buying a farm of my own so that my Dad and I can expand our farming operations, but in our part of the country farming is a dying love and it is hard to get a bank to loan you money.

Austin Stephen born 10/19/2009. Left the house at 12:30AM for a half hour run to the hospital and had a baby by 2AM. Almost needed a catchers mit on that one. Boyz if u think your tough you'll think again after seeing a no drug child birth. Pretty confident if men had the babies we would stop at one.

On the farm
A while I posted about hiring the young farmer to harvest my… Continue

Shoot, I was so disgusted last night; I saw that CSI Miami was going to do a farm story. I watched it and wouldn't you know, the script brought out the "those uneducated farmers" stereotype. Damn insensitive and a stupid thing to do. I could believe they did it but I sure was sick to see it. Of course, the rich farmer turned out to be a money hungry criminal (rich but not so smart in the end) and the crop farmer was a swell guy that was duped by the man. There was an attempt to counter the… Continue

Tomatoes lay rotting in the field. It would have cost more to take them to market than the March 14th 2009 prevalent market price of less than 2 cents a kilogram.

Farmers in India are exempt from paying income tax. There is a common misconception that agriculture needs no book-keeping. I do not know a single farmer who makes financial statements for his or her land. Nothing could be more… Continue

Have you always made up your mind on what to buy before you set out shopping?

Pesticide retailing is, in a sense, like flying an aircraft. You could be a veteran, but you still need to go over the dose, precautions, and proper disposal protocols once again, before you make a purchase.

I agonize over every pesticide mishap about which I read so often on the Internet. Not even the United States is above pesticide abuse, and… Continue